These smoking, drunk, drug taking, sky watching, iphone pounding, on line, up at 3pm, bad backed, depressed baby making machine scumbags should be put in workhouses and fed in a soup kitchen. Anything else is a luxury we cannot afford.

The unemployed should have night-time curfew and restricted access to non-unemployed residential/recreational areas would be prudent, I do not want to find the unemployed going through my bins, robbing my home, or molesting my dog in the park.

Those in position should be allowed to take on, or ‘foster’ if you like, the longer term unemployed, the government sub-contracting their needs out to the privet sector. A place to sleep – a loft or out-building, food and water - leftovers from last night’s dinner party and an outside tap, and the all important work training/experience - cooking, cleaning, child care, estate/grounds/house maintenance, caddying, even further sub-contracting out to a farm or a factory for more training (all would help someone with the skills needed to get back into work).

And when back in work they can start to pay back their board and loggings to the state and/or their ‘fosterer’ along with the training cost, expenses, appropriate administration fees, etc.

Yes and we didn't just interview the two who got the jobs which might sound like stating the obvious but the decisions were made on their qualifications and other factors. One of them had done a small IT project as part of a work placement in his degree and that was discussed at length. Had he done two weeks in Poundland it wouldn't have been.

When I did my degree many moons ago I did a year in industry which was unusual from a traditional Uni (as opposed to a Poly) back then but it was the best thing I ever did. I am convinced I got a better degree as a result and while the employment marketplace was better then I was offered four different jobs and I am sure the year in industry counted toward that. I also appreciated my last year at Uni all the more having seen the real world of work!

So relevant experience is a very good thing in my book. Being compelled to stack shelves will tell a prospective employer absolutely nothing about how their prospective employee will pan out for them.

I would argue that is not a bad thing. Some of us older folks long for an unrealistic expectation every now and then.

Ah, to hedge their bets, yes?

LOL Oooops I'm dyslexic

Easy, instead of making it compulsary make it easier to volunteer to do unpaid work in the field you are trained/educated in.

That way the law students can work unpaid for an agreed period of time getting experience and showing willing by not making it compulsary whilst the unqualified will have to do less qualified job roles if they choose to do so as a way of showing willing.

Don't threaten job seekers with benefit cuts, threaten the idle instead.

In principle thats not a bad idea, in practice it does raise the prospect that suddenly every employer in the land will have access to this huge wealth of free labour.

In principle access to free labour is not a bad idea for most cash strapped businesses who other wise would not be recruiting right now, but it does raise the prospect that these might not turn out to be newly created work experience jobs, but real jobs that were formally filled by people who were employed but are now unemployed because the company got rid of them to fill the vacancy with free labour.

Yes, it would be illegal to do so, but do you trust a cash strapped business enough to assume that no-one would try it on ?

Would you have the fictional character Yosser Hughes working in a Museum?

Cait Reilly volunteered in a museum because she saw that this volunteering was the first rung of the ladder when it comes to getting the career that she wanted. The Work Programme is all about matching clients to suitable posts and unfortunately in reality this hasn't been the case - It's been about creating profits for multinational commercial companies.

One thing that very rarely gets discussed is why people on benefits are idle.

Personally I think most idleness on benefits comes from the exhaustion of rejection.

There's no indication of the level at which she worked but how would being forced to stack shelves and wash floors at Poundland improve her CV better than voluntarily working in a museum, in whatever capacity?
Given that she wants to eventually land a job in a museum, you could look at her voluntary work in a museum as a sort of minor-internship.
It would certainly look better on her CV for that kind of job than washing Poundland's floor would.

More to the point, how exactly did Poundland get in to this scheme?

I could understand it if they were genuinely offering some sort of "work experience" coupled with genuine supervision and training, for people that a reasonable assessment had been made might benefit and increase their chances of a fulltime job, if this is on the basis that Poundland both has no actual vacancies, AND that there is a significant cost implication for Poundland if they participate.

ANY other type of job, then at least minimum wage should apply.

I know nothing of Poundland's involvement, but clearly in this lady the posting was asinine, to put it at its best; given what she was already doing, and given the direction she wanted to take, there does not seem to have been anything, at all, to be gained by this forced labour. Unless her labour was in fact of cash benefit to Poundland if she did work which otherwise normally paid staff would have had to do.

Good post.